TidBITS#213/14-Feb-94
=====================
This week Matt Neuburg examines the latest and greatest release of
HyperCard, version 2.2; Mark Anbinder reports on the demise of
the Apple Catalog and on additions to the Apple Remote Access
family; and we briefly look at the latest Sculley soap opera
and a major problem with PowerTalk. Finally, for those on the
Internet, a complete list of Info-Mac mirror sites.
This issue of TidBITS sponsored in part by:
* APS Technologies -- 800/443-4199 -- 71520.72@compuserve.com
Makers of hard drives, tape drives, memory, and accessories.
For APS price lists, email: aps-prices@tidbits.com Comments:
--------------------------------------------------------------
Topics:
MailBITS/14-Feb-94
Apple Catalog Nixed
ARA Options
Info-Mac Archive Mirror Sites
HyperCard 2.2: The Great Becomes Greater
Reviews/14-Feb-94
[Archived as /info-mac/per/tb/tidbits-213.etx; 30K]
MailBITS/14-Feb-94
------------------
For those who celebrate it (and we have no clue how widespread it
is in the world), Happy Valentine's Day!
**Sculley Quits** -- We're not talking Apple news here any more,
but to continue the John Sculley soap opera, Sculley announced
last week that he is resigning from Spectrum Information
Technologies. Sculley's rationale was that Spectrum, and
specifically Spectrum founder Peter Caserta, misled him about
problems at the company when he accepted the position. And, just
to show that Sculley believes in the American way (when in doubt,
sue), he's filing a $10 million suit against Caserta "in
connection with matters relating to the circumstances under which
I was induced to join Spectrum, to my obvious detriment."
Apparently, one of the main problems Spectrum failed to tell
Sculley about was the SEC inquiry into Spectrum's potentially
dubious reporting of potential earnings after a deal with AT&T
(TidBITS #199_). Spectrum also appears to believes in the American
way (when in doubt, counter-sue), so the company is suing Sculley
for more than $300 million in damages. The firm of KPMG Peat
Marwick seemingly wants to have nothing to do with any of them,
and has resigned as Spectrum's auditor. The juiciest detail is
that three Spectrum insiders sold stock worth $13.2 million when
Spectrum's stock rose precipitously after the news of Sculley's
hiring (it's since fallen equally precipitously). Tune in next
week when we find out how all the money really came from space
alien Contra rebels through an S&L.
**PowerTalk deletes email** in your In Tray if you delete from
your Key Chain the personal gateway software that received said
email. Thanks to David Thompson of StarNine Technologies for
posting this information on the nets. Every personal gateway is
affected, so if you plan on deleting one from your Key Chain, copy
its mail to a folder first. Email that came in via routes other
than the deleted personal gateway should be fine.
You cannot recover the mail by reinstalling the gateway, but you
can recover the deleted messages using a special technique.
PowerTalk stores email in a folder called IPM Bin, which lives
within your PowerTalk Data folder within your System Folder. If
you move all of the remaining email in your In Tray out to a
folder (you can't move them back into your In Tray after that,
_unless_ the folder you chose was the Trash), you will find files
with 8-digit hex number names still in the IPM Bin folder, some of
which match your missing email. Drop them on AppleMail, which can
open and save them (as long as they were sent from AppleMail).
Let's hope that Apple clarifies in PowerTalk just what happens
when you remove a personal gateway from your Key Chain.
Apple Catalog Nixed
-------------------
by Mark H. Anbinder, News Editor -- mha@baka.ithaca.ny.us
Technical Support Coordinator, BAKA Computers
Never one of Apple's more popular sales channels, the Apple
Catalog has been laid to rest after losing a significant amount of
money for the company during slightly more than a year of
operation. The Apple Catalog was especially unpopular with
dealers, who felt that Apple was competing with them directly.
The Catalog was discontinued on 01-Feb-94, but while stock is
still on hand, Apple will continue to take orders in some product
categories, including desktop Macs, PowerBooks, and products for
disabled people. We hope that Apple will take any items that are
in short supply in other channels and redistribute them, rather
than wait for such orders.
Orders for out of stock and backordered items, even orders placed
before 01-Feb-94, will not be filled; customers whose orders must
be cancelled will be notified by mail.
The Apple Catalog was a convenient source of manuals and cables,
especially for discontinued Apple products. Apple assures us that
dealers may still purchase manuals that are not long gone, and
Apple dealers and other resellers (such as the popular mail-order
houses) usually have or can obtain cables appropriate to any task.
ARA Options
-----------
by Mark H. Anbinder, News Editor -- mha@baka.ithaca.ny.us
The Apple Remote Access family now includes several products that
make it possible for users to select precisely what they need.
These include a personal all-in-one package that replaces the
original ARA 1.0 package, multi-port server packages, multi-user
client packages, and upgrades for owners of ARA 1.0.
The Remote Access Personal Server, retail $249, includes both
client and server software, licensed for a single user to use at
"both ends." This is similar to the ARA 1.0 package, which
included both client and server functions in the package.
The Remote Access MultiPort Server package, retail $1,799,
includes the server software and client software for four users,
and a multiport serial NuBus card and cable. The Remote Access
MultiPort Server 4-Port Expansion Kit, for $1,499, leaves out the
server software, but provides the multiport serial card, four
clients, and cable.
The Remote Access Client 10-pack retails for $599, and adds a
ten-user license to your existing ARA server.
Owners of ARA 1.0 can upgrade to the ARA Personal Server for $79.
Owners of ARA 1.0 who just need the new client software can
upgrade for $29. Proof of purchase is required.
Trilobyte's ARACommander client software, which requires ARA,
fully supports ARA 2.0's new features, and also adds quite a bit
of its own functionality, in ease-of-use and security areas. It
costs $35 for a single-user copy, but only $675 for a 100-user
license (there are various stages in between as well). In my
opinion this software is well worth the extra investment.
Shiva and Cayman both have hardware servers that don't require a
Macintosh to act as the ARA server, and I believe both have
upgraded or are about to upgrade their products to support ARA
2.0. Global Village is about to introduce a hardware server that
has slots allowing installation of its PowerBook internal modems,
which will take up much less space than the hardware servers that
use external modems.
Cayman Systems -- 800/473-4776 -- 617/494-1999
sales@cayman.com
Shiva Corporation -- 800/458-3550 -- 617/252-6300
sales@shiva.com
Trilobyte Software -- 513/777-6641 -- 513/779-7760 (fax)
trylobyte@aol.com
Info-Mac Archive Mirror Sites
-----------------------------
Liam Breck passed on this list of
Info-Mac mirror sites, FTP sites that carry more or less the same
files as the main Info-Mac site. We recommend that Internet users
use these mirror sites instead of the main site because is having trouble handling the massive demand,
so much so that it has become difficult for the Info-Mac
moderators to manage the archive. If you know of a mirror site not
listed here or would like to set up a new mirror site, please send
email to .
Each entry in the list below contains (odd bits explained below):
Internet address Internet number archive directory #/#
contents access methods
organization, city, [state,] country
[notes about the site]
* Internet number
Try using this number if the Internet address doesn't work.
* #/#
The number of updates made to the mirror per number of days.
(1/1 is once a day, 1/14 is once every fourteen days.)
* Contents
ALL -- the site carries all directories in the archive.
RECENT -- the site carries only files added within the past
year.
VERY-RECENT -- the site carries only files from the past few
months.
archie.au 139.130.4.6 micros/mac/info-mac 1/1
ALL ftp gopher
AARNet, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
ftp.univie.ac.at 131.130.1.4 mac/info-mac 1/1
ALL ftp gopher
Vienna University, Vienna, Austria
ftp.ucs.ubc.ca ? pub/mac/info-mac ?
? ftp
University of British Columbia, BC, Canada
ftp.funet.fi 128.214.248.6 pub/mac/info-mac 1/1
VERY-RECENT ALL ftp gopher
Finnish Academic and Research Network FUNET, Espoo, Finland
ftp.jyu.fi 130.234.1.1 info-mac 2/1
RECENT ALL ftp
Jyvaskyla University, Jyvaskyla, Finland
all binhex converted to macbinary
ftp.cs.tu-berlin.de 130.14.17.7 pub/mac/info-mac 1/1
RECENT ALL ftp gopher email
Technical University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany
email service: mail-server@cs.tu-berlin.de
ftp.rrzn.uni-hannover.de 130.75.2.2 pub/info-mac 3/7
RECENT ALL ftp
University of Hannover, Hannover, Germany
ftp.uni-kl.de 131.246.9.95 /pub/info-mac 1/1
VERY-RECENT application cfg cmp comm dev disk gui nwt prn sci text vir
ftp gopher
University of Kaiserslautern, Kaiserslautern, Germany
gopher available via gopher.uni-kl.de
ftp.uni-stuttgart.de 129.69.8.13 pub/systems/mac/info-mac 1/7
vir card gui comm sci cmp prn cfg text nwt ftp
Rechenzentrum Universitaet Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany
ftp.technion.ac.il 132.68.1.10 pub/unsupported/mac/info-mac 2/1
ALL ftp gopher
Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel
also GopherMail access
ftp.center.osaka-u.ac.jp 133.1.4.10 info-mac 1/1
ALL ftp
Osaka University, Osaka, Japan
updating from U of Tokyo
ftp.iij.ad.jp 192.244.176.50 pub/info-mac 1/1
ALL ftp email
Internet Initiative Japan Inc., Tokyo, Japan
email service: archive-server@iij.ad.jp ("help" in message body for info)
ftp.u-tokyo.ac.jp 130.69.254.254 pub/info-mac 1/1
ALL ftp
University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
ftp.fenk.wau.nl 137.224.129.4 pub/mac/info-mac 2/1
RECENT ALL ftp gopher
Wageningen Agricultural University, Wageningen, Netherlands
ftp.lth.se 130.235.20.3 mac/info-mac 1/1
ALL ftp
Lund Institute of Technology, Lund, Sweden
4 users allowed during work hours (8-5 GMT), 8 other times
ftp.sunet.se 130.238.127.3 pub/mac/info-mac 1/1
ALL ftp gopher fsp
Swedish University Network, Sweden
email and web access will be added soon
nic.switch.ch 130.59.1.40 mirror/info-mac 1/1
ALL ftp gopher
SWITCH, Zurich, Switzerland
imftp.mgt.ncu.edu.tw 140.115.83.90 /pub/mac/info-mac 6/7
ALL ftp
National Central University, ChungLi, Taiwan
ftp.edu.tw 140.111.1.10 Macintosh/info-mac 1/1
ALL ftp fsp afs
National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan
src.doc.ic.ac.uk 146.169.2.10 packages/info-mac 1/1
ALL ftp email gopher web fsp ftam telnet
Imperial College, London, UK
email service: wizards@doc.ic.ac.uk
amug.org 165.247.10.2 pub/ftp1/info-mac 1/1
ALL ftp email
Arizona Macintosh Users Group, Phoenix, Arizona, USA
email service: not running yet
ftp.hawaii.edu 128.171.44.70 mirrors/info-mac 1/1
ALL ftp
University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
grind.isca.uiowa.edu 128.255.21.233 mac/infomac 1/1
ALL ftp gopher telnet
University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, USA
macbinary; telnet access for kermit and zmodem download with search functions
gopher.lcs.mit.edu 18.111.0.152 /pub/INFO-MAC 1/1
ALL gopher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
wuarchive.wustl.edu 128.252.135.4 systems/mac/info-mac 1/1
ALL ftp gopher fsp
Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
ricevm1.rice.edu 128.42.30.2 [NA] 1/1
RECENT ALL email, Bitnet message/file
Rice University, Houston, Texas, USA
email LISTSERV@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU with "$MACARCH HELP" in body for help info
ftp.uu.net 192.48.96.9 archive/systems/mac/info-mac 1/1
ALL (except: card grf snd) ftp
UUNET Technologies, Falls Church, Virginia, USA
HyperCard 2.2: The Great Becomes Greater
----------------------------------------
by Matt Neuburg -- clas005@csc.canterbury.ac.nz
[Note: this review was greatly improved thanks to corrections and
insights from Kevin Calhoun, HyperCard 2.2 team leader. Other
sources: Danny Goodman, "The Complete HyperCard 2.0 Handbook;"
Doug Clapp (ed.), "The Macintosh Reader;" Frank Rose, "West of
Eden."]
HyperCard 2.2 is here! HyperCard was what chiefly convinced me to
buy my first Mac; I still regard it as the neatest, most useful,
most generous program ever conceived. Generous because it was
originally given away free (no more, alas!); generous because it
lets you program the Mac yourself, easily and powerfully.
HyperCard History
HyperCard came to life in 1987 as a brainchild of Bill Atkinson.
If you love the Mac, you should worship Bill Atkinson. Anyhow, I
do. Apple Employee #31 (from 1978), he pushed for Apple Pascal (I
loved it), then for Steve Jobs's famous visit to Xerox PARC (which
inspired the Mac); he solved the problem of "regions" (thus
creating QuickDraw), designed and wrote MacPaint (which helped
define the Mac), and was made an Apple Fellow.
As with everything that goes on at Apple, there's a secret history
of HyperCard's evolution that may never be told; certainly I don't
know it, but must be content with hints and myths which have
themselves become part of its mystique. It seems that Apple
originally wanted to promulgate MacBasic to let ordinary folks
program the Mac, as Microsoft Basic had for the Apple II, but Bill
Gates balked. Meanwhile Atkinson had been working on HyperCard
(then called WildCard), built around four elements:
* buttons to push
* text fields to type into or click on
* screens ("cards") containing buttons and text fields plus
graphics
* the capacity to set up automatic "links" to take you from one
card to another
This fourth element, still residually present (e.g., in the LinkTo
button of the Button Info dialog), was subsequently expanded into
an easy programming language - HyperTalk, created by Dan Winkler.
Besides letting you calculate, manipulate variables, loop and
test, and do all the other things you expect from a programming
language, HyperTalk includes system messages reporting user
actions, commands to simulate them, and functions and "properties"
to obtain and alter the state of the interface and the machine.
The implementation grows out of Atkinson's and Winkler's expertise
in graphics and programming; but there is also a spirit of
organizing and sharing information (fields and graphics, and the
hypertext-ish act of clicking on a button or word to see a new
card), plus a sense of giving control to the user since HyperTalk
puts some of the Mac's functionality and behaviour into easy
reach.
That spirit was instantly embraced by the world that received
HyperCard bundled with the Mac from '87 to '91. I wonder whether
any application has ever promoted so tangible an ethos, or been so
transformed and enlivened by users' originality and enthusiasm.
You can program the Mac; you can give the stack to others, and
it's simple to use - hence educators (like me) went nuts about it.
You acquire a stack someone else has written: you look inside it,
see what makes it tick, modify it. Plus, HyperCard is extensible:
you can attach XCMDs and XFCNs to extend its functionality, and
people who could program the Mac's guts in "real" languages like
Pascal and C distributed numerous XCMDs and XFCNs over the nets
for all to enjoy. Many XCMDs were so useful that their functions
were incorporated into later versions of HyperCard.
But according to legend, HyperCard spirit has not been universally
understood at Apple. There is a tale of how Atkinson threatened to
give HyperCard away himself if Apple wouldn't bundle it. There are
stories of Chris Espinosa and John Sculley having to push for its
original release. Perhaps there was resistance to the idea of
giving away for free an application that essentially let users
write their own applications; certainly there was enough fear that
the idea of "programming" would repel users that Apple gave it the
euphemistic name "scripting." Fortunately, as Atkinson bowed out
of the scene, others who shared the vision remained and new ones,
notably Kevin Calhoun, came on board, and HyperCard 2.0 and 2.1,
in '90 and '91, were gems. After 2.1, though, apparently came a
terrible period where HyperCard went to Claris and nearly died,
then came back to Apple where it remained endangered.
Happily, HyperCard has survived to become 2.2, thanks in part, I
presume, to AppleScript, which has been incorporated into it. To
read the press release gobbledygook, you'd think corporate Apple
still doesn't grasp just what HyperCard is; it's billed as an
"application development platform" letting you create "customized
software solutions," an "optimal choice for commercial solution
providers." The HyperCard heart, though, beats healthy as ever;
its evolution has been no mean spiritual and technical feat, and
users have much to be grateful for.
Improvements and Enhancements
Version 2.2's improvements over 2.1 are many - mostly small tweaks
to remove annoying shortcomings. 2.2 has nicer report printing;
movable modal dialogs; Select All works in the Message box ; many
limits (number of open windows, number of open stacks) are raised
or removed. Sorting and finding are more powerful; date format
conversion is better; doMenu can take modifier keys; and "there
is" can check for disks, applications, documents, and card
pictures. System messages, properties, and functions have been
added to give handlers important, previously unavailable
information: whether the menubar is showing, what the user is
doing to the card window, where we're going in leaving this stack.
There is better menuItem info, more convenient reference syntax.
WorldScript is supported. At last you can determine the layering
order of fields and buttons via a new property, "the partNumber."
Clearly the HyperCard team listens to users and are serious users
themselves.
More major changes make it easier to conform to the Mac Thought
Police style. Radio buttons now automatically work in sets.
Buttons can be disabled, and can be in standard Mac style. Simple
pop-up buttons are now a standard feature, with an interesting
by-product that a button can now be a container. Fields can more
easily act like scrolling lists. Objects can be double-clicked.
Finally, a stack can now be saved as an application! The resulting
application is essentially HyperCard itself (it's huge, and no
faster than running under HyperCard), but it works, even if you
"start using" or "go to" other stacks, and sure beats the hated
HyperCard Player.
QuickTime
HyperCard 2.2 supports QuickTime via the Movie XCMD and the
MovieInfo XFCN. The Movie XCMD puts up a movie window, in any of
several styles, with or without a controller; you can manipulate
the movie from a handler, or let the user do it with the
controller. Many features of the movie can be manipulated, with a
number of valuable messages and a callback feature. A utility
stack installs the XCMD for you and simplifies setting up a movie
window.
Color
HyperCard 2.0 introduced color "picture" windows, and you could
click in them, but they weren't true cards; and true cards (with
buttons, fields, graphics) were strictly black and white.
Integrated color was a much hoped-for feature that Claris was
reportedly working on for its abortive 2.5 version, but it was
found to be too cumbersome. Now 2.2 provides a compromise, with a
colorizing XCMD and a utility stack to ease the process of adding
color.
You can color buttons and fields and add colored rectangular areas
to cards; select or create the object, and click on a color. Each
object has a solid color and can have a beveled edge of adjustable
thickness. You can also display full color PICTs as part of the
card. You dictate the layering order of the color items, and you
can use over 25 transition effects as you apply color. The utility
stack installs the XCMD, and modifies your handlers and gives your
stack a database of permanently colored objects, so that color
automatically appears. Color seems part of the card: moving the
card or switching stacks presents no problems or major delay
(unlike earlier third-party colorizers). You can also control the
XCMD yourself, so that color objects can change in interesting
ways as part of a handler: a button could suddenly become colored,
a rectangular region of the card could change colors with a
transition effect, and so on.
I have seen this system criticized on the nets as a kludge, but I
find it ingenious. However, I was at first overwhelmed by the
spectacular appearance of the Color Tools stack, and thought,
"Wow, colored buttons and fields look like this?!?" But then I
found that the stack's effects are achieved almost entirely with
PICTs. If you want great looking objects you'll need to draw them
yourself with a graphics application.
Inter-Application Communications
The most sweeping change in HyperCard 2.2 lies in communicating
with other programs. HyperCard has long been a leader here; even
before MultiFinder, you could use HyperCard to launch another
application, and return when it quit. Basic support for Apple
events arrived in 2.1; HyperCard could easily send and respond to
the required suite plus doScript and evaluateExpression, and could
be made to dissect and reply to any Apple event.
Now, however, HyperCard accepts some 150 different events,
operating on 17 kinds of objects and their properties; it is thus
scriptable, and you can control HyperCard from AppleScript or any
other Apple event-sending mechanism. HyperCard can itself send
messages via any OSA (Open Scripting Architecture) system-level
scripting mechanism you have installed, like AppleScript,
Frontier, or QuicKeys. A statement in a script, or a multiple
statements in a container, can be sent into the system in any of
these languages via the "do" command. What's more, the entire
script of any object can be written in one of those other
scripting languages. If the language is QuicKeys, which is not
message-oriented, you can launch it with a new "run" message. If
the language is AppleScript, messages can be passed directly
between it and HyperTalk.
Much of the value of this new power lies in the future.
AppleScript can't yet drive every application, though StuffIt,
WordPerfect, FileMaker Pro, Excel, and others are on board
already. The Finder isn't directly scriptable, although several
hacks work around this, and a scriptable Finder is now shipping to
developers. But QuicKeys can type and push buttons in just about
any application, and I've already automated several drudge
activities by having HyperCard do the looping and variable-setting
and calling QuicKeys to drive the other application.
The move to OSA support is partly of symbolic significance,
confirming (I hope) Apple's commitment to AppleScript and to
HyperCard itself. But OSA support is also of great practical
value; its marriage to HyperCard gives AppleScript access to all
HyperCard's capabilities and significantly extends HyperCard's
reach.
Bugs and Shortcomings
Apple fixed some bugs and serious misbehaviours, including the
infamous "go first marked card" bug. Not everyone's wish list will
be met, though. There's still no ControlKey function, and you
still can't script the polygon tool. HyperCard's idle-time tasks,
such as resetting the ItemDelimiter, still won't happen if a new
message is pending (e.g. you clicked a button while the previous
handler was running), and sending "idle" yourself is not a
workaround.
Documentation
The documentation (manuals and some stacks) is good, but not
uniformly so. HyperCard is hard to describe or teach, and though
the manuals do a remarkably fine job of both at describing and
teaching and the included stacks are superb as models, the manuals
have errors, ranging from simple misprints and misstated syntax
rules to howlers like a demo script for a Replace function that
breaks if the replace-text contains the find-text. There are also
odd arrangement choices and some serious omissions. Properties of
palettes and external windows are not included in the Properties
chapter. KeyDown and CommandKeyDown are not listed among the
system messages sent to a field, and we are nowhere informed that
TabKey, ReturnKey, EnterKey, FunctionKey, ArrowKey, and ControlKey
(though not CommandKeyDown) messages are preceded by KeyDown
(indeed, the manual wrongly denies that this is so). The Choose
message is not documented in the manuals; nor is the important new
"run" message. Many basic arrow-key navigation shortcuts are
documented only deep in a Help stack. The "dynamic path" is
incorrectly explained in the HT Reference stack. The new "copy
template" command is practically undocumented. Such shortcomings
in the official documentation seem somewhat outrageous.
Conclusions
HyperCard may not be free any more, but it's still a good deal.
The propaganda says that the price will be $249 (or upgrade from
registered 2.0/2.1 for $89), but $139 for a limited (unspecified)
time; I ordered direct from APDA via email to
and paid $99. The package includes the
HyperCard application; two manuals; over two dozen stacks of
documentation and utilities; the XCMDs for QuickTime and color;
AppleScript 1.1 and the rest of the "Run Time" Kit; plus ADDmotion
II from Motion Works, an application and XCMDs for multimedia in
HyperCard. My recommendation: run, don't walk.
Reviews/14-Feb-94
-----------------
* MacWEEK -- 07-Feb-94, Vol. 8, #6
Pablo 2.0 -- pg. 1
PhonePro 1.2 -- pg. 47
Passport Encore 3.0 -- pg. 49
HP LaserJet 4MP -- pg. 51
Open Sesame 1.0.2 -- pg. 54
Primera -- pg. 54
$$
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